Chapter Eighteen: The Smoke in His Eyes

The mansion’s walls had learned to whisper.

It wasn’t the creaking of floorboards or the sigh of the wind through the glass. It was subtler than that—like the very air had begun to carry secrets. Ever since Lucien’s outburst at the gala, silence between us had turned into something heavier, something toxic. Every glance held a question. Every brush of fingers, a dare.

I hadn’t seen him since that night. Three days of avoidance. Three days of being trapped inside a palace of ice with only my thoughts and the occasional cold nod from the housekeeper. And even then, I swore I saw pity in her eyes.

I pressed my hand to the windowpane in the east corridor, watching clouds roll over the Hudson like bruises in the sky.

I used to believe I could read people.

But Lucien Blackwood wasn’t a person.

He was a smokescreen wrapped in Armani and silence. A match struck inside a locked room. You didn’t know you were burning until the walls melted around you.

I turned from the window.

I needed answers. About his past. About Caleb. About the scars I saw flash across Lucien’s back when he thought I wasn’t looking.

I wasn’t just his wife anymore—I was a woman bleeding beneath velvet skin, and I deserved the truth.

So I walked down the west wing hallway, toward the study he always locked. The one I’d seen him disappear into more than once, emerging with his jaw clenched and eyes clouded with ghosts.

It was unlocked.

That alone felt like a trap.

Inside, everything smelled like leather and cedar and faint smoke. Books lined the shelves in ruthless symmetry. Papers were stacked like soldiers on the desk. But it was the portrait above the fireplace that made me freeze.

Lucien. Younger. Barely twenty. Standing beside a boy who looked just like him, only with a softer mouth, eyes less haunted.

Caleb.

But it wasn’t the photo that chilled me.

It was the scorched edge of the canvas. Like someone had tried to burn it and changed their mind halfway through.

My stomach twisted.

Something metallic caught my eye. A small safe in the corner of the room, partially ajar. Inside—files. Dozens of them.

One folder bore my father’s name.

I opened it.

The air left my lungs.

Sinclair Tech had been under surveillance long before the “merger.” Emails. Financial breakdowns. A detailed risk analysis on my father’s heart condition. A note scrawled at the bottom: “Target emotional leverage: Ivy Sinclair.”

I dropped the file.

The room tilted.

He hadn’t just saved my family’s company. He’d orchestrated its downfall to force the marriage. Manipulated every detail. Even my love for my father.

“I didn’t expect you to find that.”

Lucien’s voice, quiet behind me.

I spun around.

He stood in the doorway, hands in his pockets, eyes unreadable. No anger. Just inevitability. Like he’d known this moment would come.

I stepped back. “You planned it all.”

He didn’t deny it.

“You used my father’s illness—”

“I needed the patents. I needed the votes from the board. You were the cleanest way to acquire both.”

My throat burned. “You could’ve asked.”

“And you would’ve said no.”

“So you took away the choice.”

Silence.

Then, quietly, he said, “It wasn’t just business, Ivy.”

“Don’t,” I whispered. “Don’t stand there and pretend you felt anything real.”

“I do feel,” he said, voice cracking just enough to sound human. “I feel it when I look at you and know you’ll never trust me again.”

I shook my head, trembling. “You used my love like a gun.”

Lucien took a step forward.

I took one back.

“I warned you not to fall for me,” he murmured. “I warned you what I was.”

“You never warned me what you did,” I snapped. “You destroyed my father’s life just to pull me into yours.”

He looked down. “Your father knew. Eventually. I paid him to stay quiet.”

The room blurred. “You paid him not to tell me?”

He looked up then. And for the first time, I saw regret—not weakness, but something deeper. Worn.

“I told myself it was for the company. For the legacy. For Blackwood’s survival. But it was always about you.”

He moved toward me.

I didn’t move.

“I need you to understand,” he said.

“Then tell me everything,” I said, chin high despite the ache in my chest. “Who’s Caleb? Why does his name make you go cold?”

Lucien flinched.

Then he turned, slowly walking to the fireplace, staring at the half-burnt portrait like it still whispered back.

“My twin,” he said after a long pause. “He died. And it was my fault.”

I couldn’t breathe.

Lucien kept speaking, as if the truth had started pouring from him and now wouldn’t stop.

“He loved danger. Fire. Games. He thought the world would always forgive him. But that night, he pushed it too far.”

His voice thickened.

“I told him not to go. I begged him. But he laughed and said, ‘Don’t worry, Lucien, the world bends for us.’” Lucien looked at me now, hollow. “It didn’t. The fire spread. The warehouse collapsed. And the world never bent again.”

Tears blurred my vision, but I held them back.

“I carry his name in the business now,” Lucien said. “I built this empire on his ashes. Every deal I made. Every betrayal. It was all to prove that I was the stronger twin. The one who survived for a reason.”

The pain in his voice was real. It cut deeper than any lie.

“I never meant to hurt you,” he whispered. “But I never learned how to love without ruining things.”

I stood frozen, torn between fury and sympathy. Between the fire of betrayal and the ache of his confession.

“Ivy,” he said, stepping closer, “if you hate me, I’ll let you go. But if there’s a part of you that still wants to understand me… I’ll burn for it.”

My heart thundered.

And that’s when the silence shattered.

A crash echoed through the hall.

Lucien turned sharply.

Another crash—closer. Then a scream.

One of the maids burst into the room, pale and shaking.

“Sir… someone’s broken in. East wing. Armed.”

Lucien’s eyes darkened. He moved faster than I could speak, grabbing the pistol hidden behind a bookshelf.

He turned to me.

“Lock yourself in the panic room. Now.”

“What—Lucien—”

“Now, Ivy.”

But I didn’t move.

Because in that moment, past the hallway, through the shadow of the library door…

I saw Caleb.

Alive.

Older.

Eyes identical to Lucien’s.

Smiling.

And holding a gun.